Blending a Little of the Masque With My Tragedy
by KarasBroken
Summary: Pre-"Duel/Even Chance", Archie believes that some performances require audience participation, Edrington disagrees. Sort of sequel to "Soiled"  Mild Slash


_A/N: Takes place after "Soiled." Setting is Drury Lane, London, in the year before Archie joins the _Justinian_, but after he has already been to sea, met Simpson, and come back damaged. Kenneth Alexander is his stage name._

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I.

Sir Fretful Plagiary and the river Thames had their tongues wrapped so far round each other, that it seemed impossible that either should be able to breathe. Eventually, they couldn't and had to pull apart, gasping, groaning, and returning to feather together hot and wet.

Kenny, lately Thames, thought it was the most delightful way yet invented for disposing of makeup. Sweat, friction, and spit did a fine job of loosening its grip. A rub with a handkerchief would be enough to wipe away the final blue traces of his odd little role, just an opportunity for a joke, really, and not a very good one. Daniel had a far more substantial part, though rather less makeup. Most what was on his friend's face hadn't been there when they started.

"Are you done with me, dove?"

He stopped staring, and bent close again. "Christ, not yet."

The very smell of lamp-black and face white was arousing, and he had begun to love the acrid taste, bitter like gunpowder. He licked along a sandpaper jaw, removing the dark smudges he'd left earlier. Then he licked higher, was lured into the trap, and caught.

Heart and lungs raced, and he began to throb with the desire to thrust, to seize and suck and consume. The urge for battle thrummed in his veins, and with it, the familiar creep of terror. The camouflage of paint was nearly gone, and it was time to stop before he was completely unmasked.

"I want to... I want." Half a mumble, half a moan.

"Hush. Just another minute."

They had tried more, once. Even very drunk, he had started to shake when Daniel undid his breech buttons and they stopped. Instead, as often as not, after a performance they did this. Fetched up in a spare corner to press and kiss, while they hardened and burned until one or the other couldn't bear it any longer, and broke off with a last flick of tongues. Then, to find a boy or a girl, each according to preference, to quench the fire again.

"Dan-" The pounding in his chest was starting to constrict. A dizzy fog threatened, and he clutched the man's shoulders, anxious and scalded. The harsh nip of teeth wrung out a strangled cry.

"Shh, shh, dove. All right, I'll stop, you tempting nymph." A few last kisses, softer, warm, before his friend pulled away with a little grumble. "Drive a man insane, you will, Kenny." But Daniel grinned, straightened disarranged clothes, rubbed the sweat off, and the last smears of makeup, then walked back toward the green room with a satisfied swagger.

Kenny slumped on a stack of old props and tried to catch his breath.

When he found a girl right after, when he didn't stall, and wait, and catch Daniel in the back hall, it wasn't the same. He didn't dwell, didn't question. There were no answers there that could make him happy. Being with Daniel turned his belly into a knot of desperation, as if his balls might tighten into stone, and leave him permanently wanting. It made the whole world sharper, more satisfying, not just the woman.

Why didn't matter, just that he craved it, and that lips and tongue alone were enough. They never touched each other, never went farther. He thought Daniel no longer wanted to. Content to play about, to turn him into a quivering nerve with the deft talent of greater experience. The man had boys and girls alike standing in line for his kisses, let alone more.

Was it vanity, or pity, that made the man meet him here night after night, that drove Daniel to ravish his mouth, until he begged, then leave to find more amenable sport? It was another thing Kenny didn't let himself question.

"If it wouldn't be an inconvenience, could I impose on you to inquire if Miss Eleanor is receiving callers?"

Kenny's hackles rose immediately at the crisp, prissy, aristocratic tone. It took him a while to spot the speaker, lurking deep in the shadows just inside the stage door. He flushed, wondering how long the man had been standing there, but firmly reminded himself that it didn't matter. He was Thames. No one cared who a river kissed. Or an actor.

"And if it is an inconvenience, sir?" He remembered at the last moment to add the honorific. Kenny had been planning to pay a call on Ellie himself, as soon as his body had calmed enough to let him walk. They'd tumbled together in the past and she was a fun girl. Giving, mischievous, and clever in several different ways. He shifted down from the boxes as his cock reminded him rather painfully of at least one of those ways.

The man stepped forward as well. A tall, rangy fellow, not many years older than Kenny. Very still, upright posture, even the man's blond hair, curly by nature he thought, had been strangled and slicked into a straight, short queue. Narrow, haughty features, but Kenny was shamefully relieved that the eyes which scanned him thoroughly from head to toe-with a slight pause amidships-were a mossy brown.

Finishing the inspection, the man's expression tightened, as if catching whiff of a bad smell. "Then I shall have to hope for better luck with Miss Eleanor, and wait."

Kenny thought for a few long seconds about interfering but the man looked like money. Excellent tailoring, new boots, brightly polished, a gold watch chain. It would be unfair not to give her the chance, and cruel to make her turn him down. She would, when there was a choice between a bit of fun and food for the next week, and he couldn't blame her.

"I congratulate you on your taste, sir, Ellie is worth waiting for." Though he had already decided to do what the man asked, Kenny couldn't resist running his hand over the hard heat in his groin, squeezing himself through the wool of his pants and watching the blond man's features stiffen with shock at the rudeness.

"I'll just be off to fetch her then." He could feel the man staring at him as he turned and walked away.

He told Ellie about her rich visitor with a grin that hid his regret. But he did seize the girl for a long caress before he let her leave. She went to the fop very prettily flushed, and tasting like him.

He asked her about the man later, curious. Frederick was the fellow's name. Generous apparently, and shy, once the dressing room door closed. Brisk enough once the matter had begun, but slow to get there, waiting to watch her wash, watch her undress. Stiff like a poker up his arse, she said, liked to give orders. But handsome. Kenny had noticed that himself.

That night was only the first time he saw Frederick (never Freddie, or Fred). Either the fop had a passion for Sheridan's "The Critic" or the man liked Ellie very well. But on the alert now, he caught Frederick standing in the shadows more than once, watching him and Daniel. Kenny couldn't help wondering if there was something else Frederick had a passion for.

II.

It was harder to hide when in full lobster regalia. If the white breeches and waistcoat hadn't given Frederick away, the light glinting off his lieutenant's gilt would have done the trick.

Kenny found it tedious that the man continued the pretense. More so when he could no longer deny that Daniel had been intercepted tonight and probably wasn't coming. Not to him at least. It was humiliating to be _seen_ as unwanted. Without the audience, he could have shrugged and been off to hunt.

He couldn't resist poking the tiger while he waited, not yet entirely without hope. "You seem to be a horse of a different color tonight, lieutenant, is it? Ellie never mentioned you were a soldier boy." Frederick had to show his disdain by flicking off some minute speck of exceptionally daring dust before bothering to answer.

"I don't pretend to know the extent and nature of your mutual communications, Mr. Alexander, but Miss Eleanor was well aware that I have stayed so long in London only because I was awaiting word on my promotion. I will join my new regiment in a few days."

"Congratulations!" He was hearty enough that the sound made the man wince. "Come for a farewell fuck, then?"

Frederick wrinkled his long straight nose at the profanity. "I still have expectations for some _congenial_ company." Was that a sneer, or smirk? The hint of amusement made all the difference. "And you? Missing your energetic friend, I see." Yes, a definite smirk, quirking those thin, aristocratic lips.

"And you, your entertainment?" Straight enough said to make Frederick flush, or was it blush? Either way, the man improved with a little pink. "I have a lot of friends." That was bravado, but the man provoked him to it, looking so superior, as if there were such a moral difference between kissing a man and merely wanting to. Sins of the heart, and all.

He stalked in. "I think you'd like to be one of them."

Kenny marveled at the economical way the man conveyed so much offended protest in just a twitch of hands smoothing down buttons. "Do not mistake me for a sodomite, Mr. Alexander, just because I do not care what other men do to each other." What a lime-eating expression on that smug face. Such disgust for him, from a man not too revolted to ogle.

Never mind that he hadn't been _sodomized_ for almost a year, or that the very word set up a sickening clench in his belly. He didn't need this self-righteous red cock to tell him he was irrevocably tainted. So soiled that, yes, even now a man's thin lips, and a nervous flick of the tongue could make him hard. Polluted enough to want to spread the stain.

"I think you care very much."

Without stopping to think, he grabbed the man by the neck, yanking hard before he could be dodged. Hands strengthened by years in the rigging dug into tendon and muscle, controlling, trapping Frederick, and likely hurting more than a little. He kissed the man open-mouthed, but not hard, no, force would be easier.

He was careful to be soft and wet as a ripe peach, coaxed and then licked as the lips under his fell open in shock. It didn't take but a moment, before he felt the other man give. Felt the hot breath gasp out and suck in, and that was when he let go and stepped back.

Not far enough. Frederick hit him. No, that wasn't true, he was slapped, open-handed, like you might rebuke a child or a servant. The pain of it was nothing, not enough to bring on the gray fog, more a wash of red. He punched Frederick properly, splitting the arrogant prick's lip. That was how a man defended his honor.

He was ready for a brawl, welcomed it. The lieutenant had the better of him in height and reach, and wasn't a slight man, but Kenny had already proved he was fast and strong. And willing to fight dirtier he suspected. But Frederick wouldn't give him even that satisfaction, backing away, and bringing out a handkerchief to dab at the blood.

"I am the son of the Earl of Edrington." Of course. Too above him to fight, to touch, but not too good to watch the mollies kiss or fuck an actress.

It was the rage in his blood that made him do it. Archie dredged up the posh accent he had so diligently been discarding the last few months, and practically spit in Frederick's face. "And I'm the son of the Earl of Cassilis, but I doubt either of our fathers will be very useful to us just at the moment. Would pistols at dawn in Hyde Park suit you better?"

As soon as he said it, the terror descended, anger transforming into panic. It wasn't the thought of a duel, he could happily murder the man right now, and would have no problem shooting him later. Archie had faced fire before. But it was _Archie_, now, it was being _himself_, doing this, here, in this place, that made the world twist around the edges and all the belligerent fire drain out and turn to ashes.

Frederick snorted. "This is not a role that suits you in the slightest, Mr. Alexander. Kindly do not abuse my credulity with the same disregard as my person."

Of course he hadn't been believed. What would a lord's son be doing on a stage, let alone behind it, twined lustfully around another boy. Archie sagged with relief, and dropped his head, staring at the dirty and paint-spattered ground. He couldn't say what he thought the lieutenant would do, next. Hit him again perhaps, beat him to teach a lesson, or just leave, disgusted and done with the whole encounter.

Instead he felt an implacable grip seize his jaw, forcing his head up to meet a stern, brown gaze. He was studied, shaken whenever he dropped his eyes, for a long minute. Made to stare up at the cool porcelain features, now marred with blood, and bit of his own blue paint.

"Open." He couldn't say why, except that the man's firm grip on his chin was sending a sort of chill down his spine that had otherwise paralyzed him, but he did open his mouth. The lieutenant swiped a thumb over the bleeding split he had given the man, gathering several thick droplets. These Frederick smeared, very slowly, over Archie's lower lip, before plunging that thumb deep into his mouth, stroking the damp, velvety inside of his cheek. "Suck."

In a daze, he did, wrapping tongue and teeth around that hard little digit, tasting the iron-tang, and beneath that, soap. Uncertain what was wanted, he began to coax and spiral the tip, raking the slight callus there, then drawing in until Frederick's hand was resting against his cheek, petting languorously.

Under these attentions, for a few moments, the lids flickered shut on those light brown eyes, and he felt a rush of triumph. The lieutenant finally extracted thumb from Archie's grasp with a pop of suction breaking, and a barely audible little grunt.

"I believe I will go find Miss Eleanor, now. And in the future, Mr. Alexander, you should consider asking if your ardor is returned. A pretty face and a clever mouth do not generally make up for an abominable lack of dignity or decorum." Frederick left him there with a quizzical little smirk, while Archie stood gaping and suddenly on fire.

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